They had clicked immediately. Both country boys, having grown up in a town where everyone knew everyone else's business, they related to each other.
Cloud was the only one who kept up of the ShinRa infantrymen. He matched Zack's stride easily, and Zack was disappointed that only the boy's nose and mouth were visible under the helmet, for he was truly intriguing… an enigma, and those were Zack's favorite kind of people. Someone like a rubix cube that he could get confused about and then finally solve. And once you solve the puzzle, everything gets so much easier to decode, to decipher it again.
The two had joked about how they were self proclaimed "backwater experts", and when Zack wanted to know his name, Cloud pulled off his helmet revealing beautiful blond hair that contrasted with the snow and his skin, and… blue eyes, so blue one would think he'd already been exposed to the mako treatment all SOLDIER's underwent. Zack wanted to drown in those eyes, submerge himself in the warmth of Cloud's hot water gaze.
Days and days of friendship followed, Zack playing mentor to the blond as Angeal had to him. They came to know each other so deeply, with a spiritual bond almost; and when Zack hugged Cloud before he left for his first dangerous mission, their bodies were like the last two puzzle pieces, fitting together in a way so right it was almost wrong. And it was then that Zack knew.
To Zack, Cloud's eyes were the rain on a hot summer day; so refreshing when everything had seemed so unbearable moments before. Those cerulean orbs shone deep into Zack's soul, cheering his spirit instantly.
Cloud's smile, so shy and uncertain as he laughed hesitantly at Zack's joke, was the sun shining through a storm. He could warm the SOLDIER's heart with the slightest flash of those pearly white teeth and upturn of pale pink lips.
Cloud was Zack's shining light through the darkness of SOLDIER's secrets, Angeal's betrayal, and the doubts the 1st class was starting to have about what was true and what was just a lie constructed by those who wished to use him for their benefit. Now if only Zack could have told his little Chocobo-head all of this…
He never got the chance. So many distractions made it completely impossible- and then there was Aerith. He loved her, he really did- he just wasn't sure in which way he loved her anymore.
Then Cloud was comatose. And there was no way he would remember it, but on the truck the day Zack died, he murmured, in one last futile attempt: "I love you, you know." No response was given; Cloud was still fading in and out. Zack sighed and ran a hand through his hair and continued on the path to his imminent demise.
(Sorry, that was kinda crappy… I wrote the first part over a year ago and found it in my documents and decided to finish it and put it online in case anybody would enjoy it. Also, I wanted to tell my readers- if I still have any- that I will be updating my stories very soon as well as posting another multi-chapter story so stay tuned!)